September 22, 1994|By DAVID CAZARES Staff Writer and Staff Writer Ken Kaye contributed to this report.

It was almost 3 a.m. and Melanie Procaccini could not sleep as she and her 3-year-old nephew were traveling from New Orleans to West Palm Beach on Amtrak's Sunset Limited train. The train was hurtling through the blackness, crossing the bayous of Alabama when, suddenly, Procaccini had a premonition: They were going to crash.

Immediately, she woke up Robert Lee Schmidt Jr., her nephew. She placed the boy over a pillow, wrapped him in a blanket and braced for the impact.

"I put my hands together and I tell God, `Please, don't take me and Robbie,'" Procaccini said. "`I'm not ready to die.''' Moments later, the train flew off a bridge that seconds earlier had been rammed by a barge. Procaccini, of Pembroke Pines, and her nephew were among the survivors.

Of the 47 who were killed, 21 were from Florida.

The wreck of the Sunset Limited was one year ago today. Procaccini, 38, hasn't been able to forget.

She remembers the sound of the engine blowing up.

She remembers pushing her nephew, still wrapped in his blanket, and other passengers out the train window and into the dark water. She remembers draping Robbie across a railroad tie and telling him to "kick like a horsie," as they swam through diesel fuel.

Like Procaccini, federal transportation authorities think better safety standards could have prevented the tragedy. Drawing from what they learned from the crash, they have proposed new rules for situations in which trains and boats meet - most aimed at boats.

In a report issued this week, the National Transportation Safety Board said the accident probably occurred because a towboat pilot became lost and disoriented in dense fog. The towboat was pushing the barge that rammed the bridge, damaging the track and causing the train to derail.

The pilot did not know how to navigate by radar, the report said. And the pilot's employer, Warrior & Gulf Navigation Company, had not checked whether he was trained in electronic navigation.

The railroad industry also shared some of the blame: The lack of a national railroad bridge inspection policy was a contributing factor in the crash, the report said.

The U.S. Coast Guard now is looking at ways to make the pilots and their towboats safer.

The agency has proposed changing its navigation rules to require towboats to have radar and other navigational equipment. New rules also could require all pilots to be trained on the equipment.

Howard Robertson, a spokesman for Amtrak, said the railroad is lobbying a congressional committee that deals with maritime issues to call for even stiffer safety standards.

"We are very concerned because [the accident) did not only cause a lot of damage to our equipment, it also cost the lives of our passengers and employees, and damaged our reputation," Robertson said.

As at Amtrak, officials with the Federal Railroad Administration said the crash was caused by the towboat, not by a poorly maintained bridge.

"This was not a question of the structural integrity of the bridge," railroad administration spokesman John Fitzpatrick said. "Bridges were not designed to withstand the impact of barges."

But the railroad administration may start taking extra precautions with railroad bridges over waterways where there is heavy towboat traffic. One would be to more boldly mark the bridges, making them easier to see in bad conditions.

While the government works with the transportation industry to prevent future accidents, families of the victims can't forget the past one.

There were 66 lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court in Mobile, Ala., after the train wreck. All were consolidated into one suit, which is not expected to be heard until 1996 before Judge Richard Vollmer Jr.

The defendants are listed as Amtrak; Warrior and Gulf Navigation, the company that owned the barge; and three men operating the barge: Andrew Stabler, Willie C. Odom and Nick Barchie.

Many of those on the train were couples, returning home from vacation.

James and Ruth Taube, of Loxahatchee in Palm Beach County, had traveled all over the country before boarding the Sunset Limited on what was to be their final leg home. He was 31, she was 28, when they died together that night.

It's people such as the Taubes that Procaccini can't forget.

"There's not a day that goes by that I don't remember the train wreck," Procaccini said. "I had to watch those people die right in front of me and I couldn't help everybody."